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Saturday, January 16, 2016

Up Close and Personal With Yana Gilbuena: Kamayan and Filipino American
History

Self-proclaimed gypsy chef Yana Gilbuena, held
a pop-up dinner in Downtown Houston’s Henke and Pillot on December 27, 2015. I was able to grab a moment of her time before she headed out to Bogota, Columbia for her next adventure. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Gilbuena is a kindred spirit and guardian of the Filipino identity. Learn the deeper meaning of the SALO Project - reconnecting the world to the Filipino in all of us through the treasured cuisine.

"I want to inspire people to keep spreading the word and spread culture through food. I am not saying I am a world class Michelin star chef. I am far from that, this is my language and food is my currency. For me, being able to share that experience with people and give them a concept of what Filipino food is and Filipino culture, I think that is one of the best rewards I can ever get."

CP:I want to bring more
visibility to the Filipinos who come through town and our own Filipinos here - to identify those little pieces of history
that define us and the food is a big deal.I was watching Mind of the Chef the other day and Season 3 Episode 2 - have
you met Paul Qui?

YG:He was very busy;
I was not able to meet up with him when I was in Austin.

CP: There is a
serious problem we would like you to solve, which Paul Qui actually talks
about.

YG:Which is what?

CP:The identity of
Filipino food in Texas.

YG:Oh Good!

CP: If you have not seen Netflix Mind of a Chef: American Season 3 Episode 2, imagine Chris
Shepherd sitting with Ed Lee and Paul Qui at Cajun Kitchen in Chinatown
Houston, TX.As they eat spicy crawfish,
Chris Shepherd asks Paul Qui, “what is up with Filipino food in Texas?” Qui
responds “they are still trying to get their bearings”. This angered me, but then I thought about the ambiguity of our
understanding of Filipino American history, the scattered communities in
Houston, I get it.People outside our
own culture want to know.

If you want access to
Filipino food in Texas, you have to go to steam table; it is not like Jeepney of
New York.

YG:What does that
even mean?What is a steam table?It’s turo-turo.

CP:It’s basically
Mom’s house.Filipino history and
Filipino food.

YG:It goes hand-in
hand.When I came from the Philippines, graduated
from university, I decided not to go to Medical School.

CP:Do you realize how
many times I have heard this story of every Asian out there?

YG:It’s the classic
Asian story.

CP:Mom and dad want
you to either be a doctor or lawyer or marry one.

YG:More history - my
dad was a doctor, my mom was a nurse. They separated when I was not even one.I was raised by my grandmother.

CP:In the
Philippines, that is like wow.You are
already throwing the dynamic.

YG:It was like a
teleserye waiting to happen.Obviously I
went to an all-girl Catholic School throughout my formative years.Then I went to the most radical university in
the Philippines, Quezon City University of the Philippines-Diliman.From there, everything was awakened.I always had these thoughts.Why should it be this way versus the other
way?It got me thinking.I’m not really happy with that decision.What fueled my decision to want to become a
doctor?Who am I doing it for?Am I doing it for me?Am I trying to do it for someone else and
make someone else happy?At the end of
the day I was like, this is my life, and I want to be happy.I want to steer my life.I made that difficult phone call to my mom
and I was like, ‘Yep, I am not applying to any med schools.I am just going to finish my degree in psychology.’

CP:After you were
disowned…

YG:I was
punished.Punishment was uprootment.Uprooted from what I was familiar with, what
is home.From there I was made to move
to Los Angeles.For me, this is like
Manila.

CP:You didn’t really
go very far.You might as well go to
Daly City, it’s the same thing.They
have Kamayan there and the different restaurants there.

YG:Exactly.I met so many young Filipinos, more like
Filipino Americans.One answer that
really annoyed me, I moved when I was 20.Most of my peers were still in college, I was already done because they
are a little bit later in the states.So, they were applying for grad school and checking the boxes – like
ethnicity.We had a big discussion about
it and they would say “we are Pacific Islanders.”If you look geographically, you are not.You are Asian.

CP:East Asian.

YG:Southeast
Asian.If you look geographically, you
are not Pacific Islanders; I hate to break it to you.

CP:Well there is no other box for that.

YG:You are
Asian.You are part of Asia.And they would say, “No, we are not.”Where does this even come from?You, as a Filipino, should know you are an Asian.Ever since I was a kid, I was drilled to
think that where we are geographically is what defines us as a country, as a
citizen, or as a culture.

I stayed in LA for seven years.I did not know what to do with myself.I have never had a job my entire life.Finding a job at twenty with no internship to
back me up was kind of crazy. I ended up being a behavioral therapist for
autistic children because that was my background in Psychology.Then I ended up having a major car crash at
the age of twenty-three.This was a major
wake up call.If I had died, I would
have nothing to show for.That is when
I pretty much decided I want to change something about this and not just cruise
through life.I went back and studied
architecture and I thought that was what I wanted – to be in design and that
was my life during those seven years.

Even when I moved to New York I was in the architecture design
field.I was doing SALO, my pop-ups as
a hobby, my creative outlet.

I loved to cook, I never thought about it.Cooking was a natural thing to me. I don’t read recipes.It is just one of those things.I just know.

CP:Did you learn
when you were growing up?Were you
watching your parents?

YG:I didn’t realize
it, but most of my childhood was spent in the kitchen.I was the only child.My grandmother was too old and could not play
with me.

CP:That is what you do;
you chop the veggies and make yourself useful.

YG:Exactly.If she could not control my temper, I would
be sent to the kitchen kind of like a punishment.Ok. I am chopping garlic and onions, tending
the charcoal, the dirty kitchen in the back.I actually enjoyed it.We would go
to the market, get fresh fish.

CP:This isn’t
punishment?

YG:A part of me
subconsciously tried to be makulit so
I could be sent to the kitchen.I like
being there.So for me it came so
naturally I didn’t even think about it.

When one of my friends started doing farm to table, I was
thinking no one was doing anything culturally.There was no aspect of culture in these dinners.It’s great, but what is that cuisine?New American?So what is New American?Oh, ten
different kinds of beets.Great.

I appreciate they were trying to innovate and trying to
innovate fresh veggies and translate to a new palatable cuisine.When you tell me American, I think of burgers
and fries.You can’t undo that for
me.We all have our concepts of certain
cuisines and that got me thinking what people perceive Filipino food to
be.Nobody else has defined that.

I have been to Jeepney, I have been to Maharlika.I have been to Purple Yam.I sat down, tasted their food, looked at
their menus and this is still not home for me.This does not bring me home.You
know what I mean?

Maybe I am speaking on my own, as someone born in the Philippines,
our only connection is food.Food, like flavor
or any odor, is a big memory invoker.Why
do we go to these mom and pop places?It
is not because the food is amazing. It
is because it reminds us of home.Since
you are so far away from home, this is your only way to connect.It is so precious.For me, I wanted to share that.I wanted to share what home is defined for
me.

It made me think how many dishes out there are not
represented.So many people don’t come from Manila.What if they come from Mindanao?

CP:That is so
different.

YG:It is still part
of the Philippines, but they didn’t grow up eating bopis.

CP:Obviously
religion is different there.

YG:Even the
ingredients that they get.I grew up
eating batchoy, nobody else even knows
what that is.It’s Filipino ramen.

CP:So here when
everyone says “Filipino” they think of…

YG:“Pancit. Lumpia”

CP:“You guys throw really
good parties and the food and you can sing and dance.”When we define ourselves, it is so
different.How do we marry the two to
try to represent ourselves?We are
actually people with thousands of islands with thousands of languages with
thousands of kinds of food.It is this
huge untapped resource.Where do we
start?So we start with Kamayan.How did Kamayan come into play?

YG:I had a huge
backlash on how I do my dinners.They
were like, “oh it’s kitschy, like American food. You are serving it off the chuck wagon”.

CP:Of course,
Filipinos are going to criticize.

YG:It’s so
weird.These are comments coming from
Filipinos who have only lived in the city, in Manila.I grew up in the province, eating with our
hands?Normal thing.

CP:I was raised by a
Lola from the province and we didn’t get to eat burgers.She would say “you better eat your sinigang
and your bittermelon.”

YG:And pinakbet!It’s a punishment for food.For me these eating rituals, food rituals,
they take you back through time.It
makes you think we have this on Sundays.I wanted to share this with people.If you go to Ethiopian restaurants, they eat with their hands.You dine very close to the floor, same with
Japanese cuisine.No one tells them it’s
kitschy.

CP:It’s the opposite
of kitschy if anything.

YG:I want people to
accept this is the way of things.I
don’t want to apologize anymore for the way we do things.For the way we like our things to taste.I have always encountered people who say, “That
is too spicy or too vinegary or too sweet.”And I say, “You eat it right?”If
you enjoy eating it in this certain manner then why are you wanting to – how do
you even say that?

CP:Bring it down?

YG:Bring it down or
take other people’s consideration of what they think it should be.You yourself should define what that cuisine
is.There is a dish called Bicol
Express.That thing is spicy as shit and
you can only take a spoonful because that is how spicy it is.I have been to so many restaurants where I
was like “this is not Bicol Express.”

I want my mouth to burn; I want my face to turn red.That’s how it should be.

CP:It should taste
like home.

YG:My presentation
is a little on the modern side.I don’t
like overcooked meats.I don’t like
overcooked vegetables.

CP:Which is what
they like to do.

YG:At the same time,
I don’t want to compromise the flavor.As long as the flavors are intact, I don’t see why I can’t make the
sauce separately.I don’t see why you
can’t cook the meat separately and it come together as one beautiful dish.It is different for people because they are
not used to seeing such beautifully plated Filipino food.They are used to seeing it as brown mush.

CP:So tell me what
it is like going to fifty states.I am
assuming you are booking fifty hotels ahead of time.Or are you doing it Filipino style - the
nearest person who is going to take you in.My father was pre-Facebook and he could always find the nearest person
in any state we were somewhat related to.He would invoke the “you must give us shelter” card.

YG:We are related!

I can only count the times I stayed with Filipino families
in the fifty states.I could count how
many times I have been helped by Filipinos.What warms my heart more than anything is that it extends beyond
Filipinos.This project has had people
who have never even known what Filipino food is or what a Filipino even
is.They would ask, “Where is the Philippines?”

YG:It translates cross
culture and it’s great.

CP:How did you
decide to go to each state?What was the
defining moment you decided, “I am going to do this”?

YG:I think it was
when I got laid off from my real job and I went on a four week experiment.I was on the West coast already.In my head I initially wanted for this hobby
of mine to become a bi-coastal pop-up event, quarterly so I don’t drive myself
crazy. I would spend two weeks in LA producing a pop-up and two weeks in New
York and do a pop-up and ideally it would expand to Chicago, Texas, Florida.It accelerated, because - well, I don’t have a
job now, what can I do?My friends
thought: you have four weeks; you can go to a pop-up in each city.I did it and I want to continue doing
this.There are 52 weeks and 50 states.You go figure it out.I said, “that sounds fun; I am going to do
it.I am going to figure it out!”

CP:How do you even
find calamansi in each state?

YG:I wasn’t even
worried about that.I wanted to
eliminate as many problems as possible.I am going to source everything locally and seasonally.I am going to carry the most minimal things
that I can and work with what I’ve got.That is part of the challenge.

CP:I can’t imagine
you have your bag of halo-halo preservatives.

YG:That would be kind
of crazy, “just checking it in!”

CP:You would
probably be in the Department of Homeland Security.“It’s just jackfruit!” (Filipino accent)

YG:Or Durian, “what
is that smell?”

I feel like after I set the parameters of the journey for
me, I was like “Ok, let’s go.Let’s do
it.”It did not mean I knew people in
each of those fifty states.

CP:It is the
ultimate place to be. You don’t need to bring anything to Key West.You can just sleep on the beach.

YG:The best part is
that it is so tropical and easy to find products there.It is ironic because they have to bring
products from the mainland.They don’t
really have farms out there.

CP:It’s conch.

YG:Shrimp.They had markets there.

CP:How did you get
the leaves?

YG:We had to chop
those down.

CP:You had a bolo?

YG:I had a
cleaver.You know what?We can’t find banana leaves at the
store.There were a ton of banana trees
outside.“Come on guys, let’s go chop it
down.”

CP:It grows back in
like thirty seconds.

YG:It’s like a
gecko!I didn’t even know you were
supposed to put it over a fire so the wax melts away and it flattens it out,
otherwise it will stay like a boat.That
was the first lesson I learned.I was so
used to buying them frozen and they were already flattened.Then I went to South Carolina.I pretty much planned the entire route
according to the season chasing the sun.I started in March and I left New York.It was way too cold.

I love New York, but it was so cold.

CP:I don’t think
Filipinos are supposed to be in cold and frozen areas for long.

YG:You would be
surprised.There are a lot of Filipinos
in Winnipeg.It was by request.It was some random dude by request.It was not on my list, but I was like, “Sure!”I really didn’t know anyone, but he let me
stay with him and his wife.They made it
happen.

I heard there are Filipinos in Nunavut, Nova Scotia

CP:Iceland

YG:Everywhere.Sometimes it’s great when I find Filipinos,
but sometimes they are like,” who are you?I don’t know you.”

CP:Your blue hair?

YG:Yes it throws
them off.They are like “What?You speak Filipino?”

CP:We are so used to
putting ourselves in containers, which is sad.

YG:For me, I’m a
Filipino.They would say, “No you don’t
look like a Filipino.”

CP:My dad looks like
a Tejano Mexican.

YG:That is the
beauty of it.We are so diverse in
language, culture.

You’re from the North; I am from the middle part.Obviously we have different influences.There is more Malay here in the Visayas and
that is where the Spanish actually came first.So we have more Spanish in our blood.I am a quarter Spanish and the rest, I have no idea.

CP:My family, they
were butchers and they measured the success of an event by the number of
animals butchered.They would say “it
was a four chicken, three goat and two pig event.”They brought that old school here and we
would watch the slaughter on the swing set.

YG:I remember the first
time I saw a pig butchered in front of me.I was three or four.My
grandfather took me to the Mercado.I
remember the stench, the stench was so unbelievable.

CP:The burning of
the hair?

YG:The burning of
the hair, the blood, the fish.

CP:The excruciating
sound of pain the animal is in when it is being…

YG:Well yes, that is
the only time you can get fresh blood.It’s part of the life.As
Filipinos we honor the animal.We don’t
waste anything.We eat everything from
the snout to the tail.Even with
chickens, same deal banana peel.I have
eaten the helmut, the leeg, the adidas.It is beautiful how
our cuisine is.

People ask, “Oh you eat that?”Dude, it’s freaking yummy.

CP:Sometimes when
other cultures eat it, it becomes gourmet.

YG:A delicacy.

CP:In suburban
America, I had memories of the neighbors asking, “what’s’ that smell?”

YG:There is Texas
BBQ.What’s the difference?

CP:Getting back to
your journey.Have you done all fifty
states?

YG:It’s done.I have done Canada too.

CP:Imagine all the
things you have learned about all the different Filipinos across the United
States.

YG:Not just
Filipinos, the food systems.

CP:How they get
their food or some fusion things to make their food happen, because of the lack
of local ingredients they are used to having.

YG:That is the
beauty of Filipino cuisine, it is very adaptable.The reason we have pinakbet is because those
are the only vegetables you can grow.So, what if you grew other vegetables?You would still make pinakbet, but with a different mélange.Why would it not be a pinakbet anymore if I
put kale in there or turnip root?You
know what I mean?

CP:What was the most
interesting thing you have seen where they tried to fuse local ingredients?

YG:It was the local
food.I had chicken fried steak before
in Little Rock Arkansas.

CP:My Tita always
thought it was chicken.

YG:I had no idea
what it was.

CP:The nurses, when
they came to Texas in the 70’s, my Tita ordered chicken fried steak and thought
it was chicken.

YG:I thought it was
chicken too!

CP:It is cooked like
the chicken, but it is beef.

YG:I don’t
understand the name.At the same time I
have had beautiful food like shrimp and grits.Oh my god, where has this been all my life?I love shrimp and grits!

CP:Have you had them
here or Louisiana?

YG:I had it in
Charleston, South Carolina.Best shrimp
and grits all my life at this place called Amen Street.I dream about it.I need to learn how to make that on my own.

CP:Do you write down
your experiences?

YG:I tried to keep a
journal, but I have not had the time to sit down and go through
everything.Right now, while we are
talking, this is great because it brings out so many memories of the things I
did.I know I need that time also to do
it for myself.Sometimes I would write
while I am on the road or on a plane.

CP:So what does keep
you up at night?What are you worried
about?

YG: I am worried about that I don’t know enough Spanish to
go to Bogota tonight.

The next step is a two-sided explorationIt would be good to see how these people
receive Filipino cuisine.We have traded
so much with them because of the Spanish trade.We shared a colonizer.It’s like
sharing a father.

CP:They literally
had routes from the Philippines to these areas.

YG:We are connecting
with lost brothers and sisters.

CP:Culturally we see
everyone as a cousin.

YG:It would be
interesting to see how they would receive it or how many Filipinos are there or
how they were recognized.

CP:Were you able to
draw on a Filipino network there, maybe like the United States?

YG:I always wonder
why there is no universal platform that connects all these amazing networks
together.I can see different groups
trying to do that, but there has to be a bigger platform to help people connect
– no disrespect to the consulate.

The best part of Canada was how receptive the Filipinos
there were of me than the Filipinos in the United States.

CP:That is
interesting and that speaks a lot.

YG:They have a
stronger Filipino community in Canada; they are more progressive and about
collaboration and helping each other.It
is amazing to see it.Toronto has this
amazing Filipino community.

CP:It is like a
clean version of New York.

YG:They are not
cliquish.I was introduced to them and
they were like “Yay!This is so
cool.You are here!”They were so welcoming.They are more connected to their heritage
than the Filipino Americans.They did a
Filipino weekend to celebrate Filipino culture in Toronto and they did it in Yonge-Dundas
Square.That is the equivalent to Time
Square of New York.It is mind-blowing.How come we don’t have that in New York?Why haven’t the Filipinos taken over Time Square
and why haven’t they done something similar to that?

CP:What are we doing
wrong?There was a whitewashing for me
growing up, you don’t rock the boat.

YG:That is old
school.You experience those times, but
are we losing our heritage?If you watch
Fresh Off the Boat by Eddie Huang, we
ask “do we now want mash potatoes and steak versus rice and adobo?”When I was growing up, I would say “I want
cereal.I want toast.”

My grandmother would say “What are you, Americana now?”

“No!” like an angsty teenager.Now tosilog is my jam.

CP:Now you miss it,
when I moved out on my own I would be like “I just want an egg on rice.”Just even that.

YG:“and just a
little magic sapor.”

CP:I was by myself
and my mom was not there to cook for me anymore, I am like starving!My friends would be like, “why would you eat
rice for breakfast?” and I would say “why wouldn’t you?”

YG:Why wouldn’t you?It gives you so much energy.

YG:I was with
friends before and they would say, “You are having cured pork.And rice. For breakfast?”Well I question back “You are eating an
English muffin?Mmmm.I like mine better.”

Going back to
what is happening next, I want to finish the Americas and two continents.Done, and then go on to the other five.

CP:I want to publish
this and make sure that the next time someone asks Paul Qui about what is
Filipino Food in Houston, he will say, “The next best thing is this.”Maybe the future in Houston is more pop-ups.

YG:I want to inspire
people to keep spreading the word and spread culture through food.I am not saying I am a world class Michelin
star chef.I am far from that, this is
my language and food is my currency.For
me, being able to share that experience with people and give them a concept of
what Filipino food is and Filipino culture, I think that is one of the best
rewards I can ever get.

I meet people who are like “Oh my god, I cannot believe you made
a dish from my region.Thank you so
much. It just brought me home.”Or “A soup
that you made, it reminds me of my Lola’s soup.”

Yes.That is what I want.

Gilbuena at Henke & Pillot in Houston, TX putting the finishing touches on the Deconstructed Halo-Halo.

Photo by Judy Trent

CP:I saw that you
posted you found…

YG:Calamansi?It’s year round, it’s amazing.

CP:That is what we
give for gifts, a calamansi tree.

YG:I would love a
calamansi tree.

CP:Where would you
take it?

YG:A mini one.

CP:So how long has
the journey been going?

YG:Officially it is
almost two years in March, but I started travelling September 2013.

CP:So what is the
longest you have stayed in one place?

YG: I stayed a month in Hawaii.It is so easy; I met so many people who were
like “We have a studio we can rent out to you, no problem.If you want, you can stay here until you
figure out what you want to do.

This was so tempting.

CP:If you think of
all your experiences, and you thought to yourself, going back or going forward, what do you visualize your
most perfect experience to be?It’s a
two prong question, looking back and looking forward.

YG:Going back,
ideally Hawaii is great.It is so easy
to find ingredients and recreate the whole Kamayan
feel would be so easy, but I always pride myself in the fact that I love
challenges, so the more challenging the better.The most remote place in the United States, I would love to do
that.I did one in Red Lodge, Montana
which is the last city before you enter Yellowstone National park on the
Montana side.Guess what?There was a Filipina there.

CP:There was one?

YG:A Filipina and
she was a cook in that restaurant that hosted my pop-up.So in a population of 20,000, I got twenty
people to come.That’s not bad.

CP:Then other
cultures come to your table, not just Filipinos?

YG:It was 80%
non-Filipinos at all my dinners.

CP:What is the
interesting revelation you have heard them have?

YG: They would say “I
didn’t know Filipino food was this complex and so varied.” In my dishes, I try to have the different
dishes come from different regions of the Philippines. One dish is from Mindanao. One dish is from Visayas. One dish is from Luzon. Like the dinner you were at, siniglaw is from Davao. Ginataang
is from the Visayas region and from the North I had sisig which is from Pampanga.
The halo-halo turon was my own
thing.

CP:How do people
receive your deconstructed version?You
don’t necessarily stay very old school, which I think is a bit revolutionary
and kind of cool.Have you ever had
anybody go, “That’s not halo-halo.”

YG:I think it was in
Chicago, someone posted a photo of my deconstructed halo-halo and someone
commented on Instagram, “That’s not halo-halo, that’s just like a turon.”

First of all, you were not even at the dinner.You are in no position to say that is not what
it was.Plus, the whole catch is it is a
deconstructed form and it still has all the halo-halo fixings.The condensed milk, you have the ice cream,
the beans.

CP:Everything is in
there.If you ever open a restaurant, my
recommendation is that deconstructed halo-halo needs to stay on the menu.

YG:I was in Toronto
and I was pouring over the menu and I had a two-day pop-up.I was thinking about what I was going to do
about dessert.Dessert is not my strong
suit.I hate baking.I hate the thought of making a cake like a sans-travail.I have to whip the egg whites into what?I just want it to be simple.

Jollibee has a peach mango pie and peaches are in season and
found these mangoes.

CP:What is the weirdest
ingredient you ever found that you thought, “Oh my god, I have to do something
with this?”

YG:The weirdest thing
I ever had to incorporate was these mini eggplants.They were circular, not long.I have seen it in some Indian stores and I
wonder what they are, really.I tried to
roast it, it just got worse.I tried to
boil it.It did not work.One thing I was obsessed with – sun chokes,
Jerusalem artichokes.I love their taste.I would put them in caldereta.Any time you need
potatoes, you can use sun chokes instead.I like the romanesco cauliflower.They are so pretty.I like to put
that in a pinakbut.

CP:So you are pretty
flexible.I have not heard you say that
you did not know what to cook because a region did not offer something.You seem to look at the DNA of the vegetables
of the land and you map into it.

YG:The other thing I
was trying to explain to friends is that cuisine in general, you need to know
the foundations before you can jazz it up.It is like music or art or a form of art.Picasso trained traditionally before he
started doing all his crazy modernist stuff.As long as people understand the foundations of a certain cuisine, they
understand the flavors; therefore they can jazz it up.

CP:The chemistry of
it.

YG:I don’t have the
problem substituting something because you know what this dish is supposed to
taste like.I know that adobo is made
with six different ingredients:soy
sauce, vinegar, sugar, bay leaves, peppercorn, and garlic.All of these six things have to be there in
order for this dish to be called adobe.

CP:A certain flavor
signature has to happen.

YG:Exactly.These ratios can vary from one region to
another.Ours is sweeter in the Visayas.Tagalogs are more are on the vinegary side
and that’s a thing.As long as we
understand that, I think it is easier to do that.The same for kare kare, it is peanut based.As long as you understand that it can be any nut and as long as you get
the sweetness and the saltiness of the bagoong in there.It is a flavor balance of sweet, salty,
creamy.Same with sisig.You have the tanginess of the calimansi, the
heat of the thai chillis, this creaminess of the chicken liver and the added
creaminess of the egg.It all comes
together with all these textures and flavors.As long as you understand what it is, youcan deconstruct it or play with it as much as
you want.Someone asked me, a lot of
young chefs who want to try their hand at doing Filipino food.I said, “You need to learn your history.”

CP:Amen to that.

YG:You need to learn
why certain things are cooked a certain way.For me, I understand adobe.The
reason why adobo was created was there was no refrigeration.

CP:You have to
vinegar everything.That is why they
cook the hell out of everything, it is well done.

YG:A lot of these
things have a purpose of why they are that way.I think people take cuisine for granted.“It’s just food.”

No, there is a story
about this food.

Like when Disney did Ratatouille,
the food critic was taken back to his childhood with the simple taste of the
ratatouille.It is great.That is what it is; there are always stories
behind these dishes.If someone wants to
make these dishes, you have to connect with your food beyond the
ingredients.It is beyond food.I am just here as another story teller.

CP:Your pen is the
Kamayan.

YG:And the knife.

CP:We are reading it
with our taste buds.

YG:That is what it
is.

CP:Is that your hope
then, for Filipino Americans in general?

YG:My goal is for
Filipino Americans to appreciate their country and where they came from.How they got here.The struggles we have been through to get
where we are.

It sometimes makes me sad that people don’t even know their
own history.Like who were the first settlers
in the Philippines?Do you even know?Not everyone can tell me who they were.

CP:It is even deeper
than that.When I talk to the next
generation, do you even know who Ferdinand Marcos was?

YG:It disheartens
me.

CP:Part of us has to
take responsibility.We can’t change
those bigger things, just what is around us.

YG:Hopefully what I
want to do is inspire them to look a little bit deeper, but not because
Filipino food is trendy, but assimilated as Filipino now.We are a nation of beautiful and amazing
people.Look at where we are and what we
have accomplished.It is a gateway.Food is a gateway.It is another medium to communicate to
people.Obviously there are other
ways.I could be a full on activist if I
wanted to.I could picket things and
join all the rallies, but I chose a different path.

CP:Your food is a
tool for the change.Everyone has got to
eat.People remember what they eat.

YG:It is also a way
to change the way of what people refer to as dining.Now there are no plates or utensils.Is this still considered dining?What is food?What is our definition of dining out and sharing a meal?It is crazy to think about that.It all comes down to being able to share food
with or without utensils without the pomp and theatrics at the table.Breaking barriers and making connections
while you are eating.I feel that is
lost in society.

CP:The art of
conversation.

YG:We are at the
same table together.Why are you texting
me and tagging me when I am right in front of you.I love the fact it is Kamayan style; it is
hands off (your phone).

CP:You probably
should not be touching your phone.

YG:Take all the
photos you want before you start and that is it.

CP:I noticed you had
the ground rules to pick up with your left and eat with your right.When my grandmother taught me, you pick it up
and push with your thumb. You are not
supposed to make a mess.That was your
spoon.

YG:Pack and
push.One swift move, no rice flying g off,
it is an art to be able pick things up delicately and not be like an
animal.

CP:Maybe people
think that when we eat with our hands.It is so native.

YG:Other cultures
eat with their hands, far more cultured than us, some of the oldest
civilizations ever in the world.

CP:Tell me about
Cuba.

YG:I connected
through a friend.I wanted to get a more
historical angle in Cuba.It wanted to
have more purpose beyond this journey.

CP:I treat Filipino
history here like an Indiana Jones episode; there is always stuff to discover.When we do discovery, I look to everyone and
say this is American history; this is a part of history.They are not learning this in school.This is like an archeological expedition.You can use food to get in the door, but in a
way you are uncovering something even deeper.

YG:It is amazing
when I found out about the Filipinos in Alaska, the Filipinos in Stockton and
how they are all connected.California,
Alaska, Seattle, they are all connected.

CP:I am trying to
bring that down here.Nobody knows about
the Delano Manongs.

So, what is your dream?

YG:I want Filipino
food out there.Everyone wants to order
it and you can actually find it.It is
accessible.My dream is to be able to
share my culture through food.

CP:One of these
days, I will see you on TV, Mind of a
Chef, Yana Gilbuena talking to our Texas Chef about where the cuisine is at.It would be great to hear Paul Qui say “it is
totally integrated, we totally embrace it.”

YG:I might continue
doing this for the rest of my life.Home
is where the kitchen is at.I carry home
with me.